Teen drama

At the time, Busch thought he was in second and had just gotten the run of the race on the first-place No. 24 Chevrolet. But just when Busch thought he could have stood on the accelerator, completed the pass, and taken the lead, he got two unwelcome messages over his radio from crew chief Pat Tryson.

That he was in third place, Gordon was in second, and rookie Joey Logano was the leader. And that the race would be going under caution because of rain.

The raindrops were no surprise to Busch. It had been raining on New Hampshire Motor Speedway before the yellow flag came out. But Busch couldn’t believe that the No. 20 Toyota, formerly the ride of Tony Stewart, was at the front of the pack.

“It almost startled me,’’ Busch said of hearing the news that Logano was in the front position. “I forgot where the brake pedal was or the steering wheel because it was like, ‘Wait a minute, I thought I was racing the 24.’ ’’

Logano had struggled the entire afternoon. The freshman twirled his Camry on Lap 182. He fell off the lead lap three times. The No. 20 didn’t deserve to be mentioned as one of the day’s stronger cars.

But Logano indeed had been in front for four laps. He was considered an afterthought because he was off the leaders’ pit cycle and didn’t have enough Sunoco left in his tank to make it the full 301 laps. Turned out, though, Logano only needed 273.

Because of rain, NASCAR called the race 28 laps short of the full event, giving the 19-year-old Logano his first career Sprint Cup victory. The native of Middletown, Conn., is the youngest driver to win a Cup race.

“Dream come true,’’ said Logano, who attended his first Cup event at NHMS when he was 5 years old. “This is the best racetrack that we ever could have had it at.’’

Logano and the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team credited misfortune for the win. The Camry had been slow for most of the race. But on Lap 182, Logano hit the bottom. On a restart, Logano got squeezed against the No. 39 of Ryan Newman. After contact, Logano’s left rear tire went flat, and he spun in Turn 4. After the spin, Logano entered pit road before it was open. He also broke the 35-mile-per-hour pit road speed limit, and NASCAR punished him by sending the No. 20 to the back of the line. Because of the incident, a brake line was damaged.

“When that happened, I thought we were done,’’ Logano said. “The day just went bad. We were just trying to finish it off the best we could.’’

But seven laps before Logano’s single-car spin, mayhem broke loose on the front straightaway when Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Jeff Burton, David Ragan, Casey Mears, Kevin Harvick, and Brian Vickers were caught up in a metal-busting wreck. The red flag waved, halting the race for 12:48.

But the wreck also prompted just about every car, including the leaders, to pit for Goodyears and Sunoco. When Logano entered the pits seven laps after the smashup, every other car remained on the racetrack, not needing fresh tires or more gas. And that’s where Logano won the race.

During the following green-flag run, Gordon, Busch, and the rest of the field’s best cars (Stewart, Sam Hornish Jr., Kyle Busch also piloted powerful vehicles) ducked into the pits, allowing also-rans like Logano and Newman, who had pitted earlier, to race into the lead. Newman ran out of gas, putting Logano in the lead.

At the same time, Logano’s crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, looked at the radar on his war wagon. Rain was approaching. The No. 20 isn’t in contention for the Chase for the Cup (Logano is 21st in the standings), so Zipadelli rolled the dice. He would keep his teenage driver on the track until he ran out of gas. By Zipadelli’s calculations, when the yellow flag waved, the No. 20 had enough fuel to run five more green-flag laps. But those full-out laps never came.

Instead, they ambled around the track six more times at the 40-m.p.h. yellow-flag speed. To save gas, Zipadelli instructed his driver to shut off all his fans. To kill the engine and coast on momentum. The red flag finally waved, and after the cars pulled onto pit road and the crews threw their tarps over their machines, Logano had to wait. And wait. And wait some more.

At last, NASCAR called the race. Logano had his win, albeit a rain-shortened one. But as Logano and his fellow drivers noted, in 20 years, when he’s a veteran of the Cup series with more victories to his name, nobody will remember that he took his first checkered flag while standing in the rain. There will be no asterisk next to this win.